Wheeler's expands with Furniture Outlet store

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

Furniture shoppers will have a new place to look for bargains after Sept. 17.

The owners of Wheeler's Furniture plan to open Wheeler's Furniture Outlet in an 8,000-square-foot building downtown Sept. 17.

The new store sits behind Wheeler's current store at the corner of Walnut Street and South Avenue. The new store will be managed by Kim and Becky Bennett, younger sisters of Gregg Bennett, who manages Wheeler's Furniture.

The store will be a weekender-style store, and will contain items that have been on the Wheeler's showroom at one time, or sale items the company purchases at special prices.

"It will be a kind of clearance center that will have discounted items, some mildly damaged items, but it will also carry special items that are brand new but purchased at special rates. More than 50 percent of the stock will be brand new," Gregg Bennett said.

The new store will help Wheeler's keep its showroom current, by enabling it to remove items that have been on the floor too long.

"We've worked so hard on getting our showroom looking top notch, now we want to keep it looking very clean and as current as possible. This gives us a place to sell that furniture which is still perfectly good, but simply no longer fits into our showroom," Bennett said.

The new store will open on Fridays and Saturdays, reflecting a trend among furniture stores, Bennett said.

"A lot of furniture stores are opening these weekender style stores. We thought we'd open ours Friday and Saturday, since we're never open on Sundays," Bennett said.

Wheeler's has hired a few part-time staff members to assist with the new store, and now has a staff of 23 between the two stores. The company performed the design and construction work on the new store itself.

"We tried to expose a lot of the brick work, and we used stucco on the outside because we favor that old-style look," Bennett said.

Wheeler's original store is in a building built in 1905, and Wheeler's has been a Springfield entity for more than 70 years, Bennett said.

Bennett's father purchased the business in 1985. Bennett and his sisters mark the fourth generation of Bennetts to be in the furniture business[[In-content Ad]]